December 17, 2012

Management Theory came a long way in the 20th Century, but it's always best when rooted in the basics. As the legendary early management theorist Mary Parker Follett put it, management is simply "the art of getting things done through people." As we enter an age of increasing complexity in the 21st century it's good to remember this axiom, and the best Management book of the year, The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else in Business by Patrick Lencioni (published by Jossey-Bass), is deeply rooted in it.

“The single greatest advantage any company can achieve is organizational health. Yet it is ignored by most leaders even though it is simple, free, and available to anyone who wants it.”The Advantage, page 1

What would happen if Patrick Lencioni--a truly elite business book writer--left the fictional story lines and characters more common to his work and wrote a straight-forward business book? In 2012, to our delight and every manager's benefit, we found out. In The Advantage, Lencioni presents the important, yet rarely addressed, issue of interpersonal barriers that prevent organizational health. These dysfunctions (e.g. politics or inter-team rivalry, lack of accountability, disruptive turnover, confusion) impair productivity and morale, which directly impedes success. Organizational wholeness--something attainable by all, Lencioni assures us--, trumps everything else in business. We agree.

In anticipation of announcing the winner of the 2012 800-CEO-READ Business Book of the Year tomorrow, here's a recap of the category winners. Click on the links below to read more about these top books of 2012.
Which book is *your* pick for the top book of the year?

When I got in my car, the temperature gauge on the dashboard read negative four degrees. It was sunny out, but it was the kind of sunlight that seems reluctant—like a lone light in a walk-in freezer—struggling through the cold air to get to you.
So when I backed out of the driveway yesterday morning, I thought to myself, "there is no way we get a good crowd this morning, on the coldest day of winter.

Amazon's editors have come up with another fine list of books this year. Their choices in the Business and Investing category are:
The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg, Random House
Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Random House
The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else In Business by Patrick Lencioni, Jossey-Bass
Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power by Steve Coll, The Penguin Press
Startup Communities: Building an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem in Your City by Brad Feld, John Wiley & Sons
How Much is Enough? : Money and the Good Life by Robert Skidelsky and Edward Skidelsky
Reverse Innovation: Create Far From Home, Win Everywhere by Vijay Govindarajan, Chris Trimble and Indra K.

Over the course of this week, we will be posting the shortlist selections for our 8 business book categories: General Business, Leadership, Management, Innovation/Creativity, Small Business/Entrepreneurship, Marketing/Sales, Personal Development, Finance. Then on Monday, December 17th, we'll announce the category winners, and, on Wednesday, December 19th, we'll celebrate the overall winner of the 2012 800-CEO-READ Business Book Awards! Stay tuned.